How to set up a Simple Global Search – eCreators Customer Support

Simple Global search provides global search features without the need to install an external search engine to locate the materials within the site easily.

Please note that it is available only for Moodle versions 3.5 and above.

Below are the step by step instructions to add the Global Search block and to configure it using "Simple Search"

Step 1. Log in as Site Administrator and click “Site Administration”

Step 2. Click “Blocks Editing On”

Step 3. Go to the page where you would like to add the “Global Search Block” and click “Add a block” drop-down box.

Step 4. Select “Global Search” block.

Step 5. The Global Search block will now be added to the page and will look as below as it is not yet configured.

Step 6. Click Site Administration

Step 7. Click Advanced features

Step 8. Select “Enable Global Search”

Step 9. Click Save changes

Step 10. Click Site Administration again

Step 11. Click Plugins

Step 12. Under the Search section, click “Manage global search”

Step 13. Scroll down to the Search Engine section and make sure that the Default search engine is selected to be “Simple Search”

Step 14. Scroll down to the “Search Options” section to configure the following.

Index when disabled	Allows the scheduled task to build the search index even when the search is disabled. This is useful if you want to build the index before the search facility appears to students.
Indexing time limit	When indexing large amounts of new content, the scheduled task will stop after this time limit is reached. It will continue the next time the task runs.
Searchable courses	In some situations, the search engine may not work when searching across a large number of courses. Set to search only enrolled courses if you need to restrict the number of courses searched.